Enroll in “The Theology Program” (Online Version) Next Week

ttp.jpgI don’t plug schools or teaching ministries in this space, and I don’t promote what I’m not convinced represents the values of this audience just because I get some free materials. If I tell you it’s worth your time and money, it will be. And if it proves to be otherwise, I’ll eat crow in this space.

The Theology Program gets my complete, unqualified support. The new semester of The Theology Program begins in a week. If you are looking for online theological education that’s quality from start to finish, this is your ticket.

While there are lots of ways to access TTP, the online program is worth a serious consideration by those of you who want “seminary without seminary costs.” Here are the features of the online certificate program:Continue reading “Enroll in “The Theology Program” (Online Version) Next Week”

Recommendation and Review: The Second Chance, A Film By Steve Taylor

thesecondchance_l200602061637.jpgPeter Chataway has a great interview with Steve Taylor at his site.

Every year during Martin Luther King, Jr. week I try to show a film that raises issues of racial reconciliation. Last year, one of my teacher friends, Jim Kelly, recommended I use Steve Taylor’s feature film directorial debut, The Second Chance. My initial reaction was “Christian movie. It will be an embarrassment.” Then I saw that Michael W. Smith was one of the leads, and I knew enough about Smith to deduce he wasn’t going to be the next Daniel Day-Lewis. So I was expecting a dud. I wasn’t going down the route of Facing the Giants.

I did trust my friend’s judgement, however, and I knew two other things: Steve Taylor wasn’t predictable in anything he’d ever done artistically. He was a person with craft and edge. I also knew that Michael W. Smith has talked about how deeply he was affected by the life of poverty chosen by Rich Mullins. So I took the chance and showed the movie to three of my classes. I’m doing the same this year, with similar results. It’s a wonderful, well made, deeply “Christian” film that speaks to exactly what evangelicals need to hear these days.Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: The Second Chance, A Film By Steve Taylor”

12 Churches, 12 Calvinists: My Response

church.jpgOver at Frank Turk’s blog, he has something of a motto up on the sidebar. It’s a phrase his pastor offered in a comment thread sometime in the past. Here it is: The Gospel is the solution to culture.

I’ve often wanted to riff on this statement. While I’m pretty sure how Frank and his pastor see the truth of “The Gospel is the solution to culture,” I’m more than a little puzzled by the statement.

Perhaps the fault is entirely mine, but it appears that the motto is being translated like this: “Culture is always a negative, and the answer to the problem that is culture is the Gospel. Whatever problems culture brings us, the preaching of the Gospel will resolve those problems.”

If I’m getting it wrong, I apologize in advance and invite Frank to come over and shed some light on what he’s hearing in that statement. In the meantime, let me apply it to the “12 Churches, 12 Calvinists” thought experiment.Continue reading “12 Churches, 12 Calvinists: My Response”

12 Churches, 12 Calvinists

tmbapt.jpgHow about a little thought experiment? No hidden agenda; just a way to explore the contention that certain things make all the difference.

Imagine for a moment 12 Baptist churches (that may be enough for some of you right there) in my own little Appalachian corner of the world, southeast Kentucky. These 12 churches are scattered across our area, which is almost entirely rural, quite poor, deep in Appalachian culture and all that goes along with it. They are churches dating back a century or more, the people are largely uneducated and some are even illiterate. There are deep problems of unemployment, health care, family dysfunction and substance abuse.

The churches are declining. For the past 15 years, the membership has been ingrown, with no significant influx of outsiders into the area and no significant church growth. The churches are growing older in average age, though several of the churches keep some kind of youth ministry going on. It is very rare to see young couples in church, and the congregations are graying rapidly.

The churches have been led by a variety of area men called to be pastors, with only a couple of local Bible school graduates in the mix. Pastors come and go quickly, with many leaving before two years have passed. Going from one church to another in a type of “Merry-Go-Round” is often a reality.Continue reading “12 Churches, 12 Calvinists”

Sermon: What Disciples See

jscob.jpgI preached at First Presbyterian Church in London, Kentucky again today. I took the lectionary text (John 1:29-42) and followed it down a bit further (-51) so I could not just talk about Jesus calling disciples, but about disciples being promised that they will see more than those who simply believe in miracles. Apologies to N.T. Wright for the idea that Jesus is the place where heaven and earth come together.

One thing about a sermon on discipleship is that you need to bring the Gospel of the Cross in, and since it’s not a focus of the words of the call, I wanted to say that the disciple’s pursuit of God comes in response to the Gospel; to what God has already done. If I were doing this again, I’d say more about Jesus as the Lamb of God being the first word of the disciple’s journey.

I want to thank the good people of First Presbyterian for allowing me to fill the pulpit for three Sundays. I’m praying that Pastor Ted is back and feeling better soon.

Note: I do insert the phrase “when you follow me” into the text a couple of times because I want to make it clear that Jesus was talking about what a disciple who follows sees rather than what a believer in miracles sees.

Here’s “What Disciple’s See” from John 1:29-51.

More Books For Sale!

My daughter Noel has been working on selling books for me again. We’re selling almost an entire set of the Anchor Bible Commentary (54 out of 62 volumes), the Expositor’s Greek Testament (5 vols), Shelby Foote’s Civil War Trilogy, several volumes of Page Smith’s History of America, The Complete Works of Francis Schaefer (5 vols), Wistius on the Apostle’s Creed (2 vols), a rare Thomas Boston Commentary on the Shorter Catechism (2 vols), the three volumes on the Psalms from the Word Biblical Commentary and many Puritan/Reformed single volumes by Hodge, Rutherford and others.

The links are at E-Bay for sets…

And at Half.Com for single volumes.

Noel goes by Galacticdustgirl on both sites. I’m selling a lot of good stuff at great prices, so take a look or pass these along to someone interested in buying good books.

Thinking About The Canon: A Lutheran View

canonchem.jpgUPDATE: A good and comprehensive collection of information on the various canon lists. Lots of good information.

This second post in our discussion of canonization is from a frequent Internet Monk guest, Lutheran blogger Josh Strodtbeck. Josh will tell us about the Lutheran concept of the Canon, which is quite different from what many may assume.

The 1580 Book of Concord is easily the longest confessional standard coming out of the Reformation, dwarfing the various Reformed statements, the post-Reformation Westminster Standards, and even clocking in at about double the length of the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. So it may surprise you to learn that unlike Trent, Westminster, the 39 Articles, etc, there is no definition of the canon of Scripture in the Lutheran Confessions. This is relevant because between Catholics and Protestants, the canon debate is framed in such away that either you believe in an inerrant Protestant canon of 66 books based on their self-evident, internal witness to their own divine inspiration, or you believe that the infallible Church inerrantly defined the canon, and that it is accepted only on that authority. But as with many theological issues, the Lutheran position takes neither of the supposedly only two possible options without being a synthesis, either.Continue reading “Thinking About The Canon: A Lutheran View”

Thinking About the Canon: A Post-Evangelical’s View

main_2.jpgAfter reading Mark Shea’s By What Authority? and revisiting Craig Allert’s A High View of Scripture? I started making some notes on my own ideas about the question of canonicity.

This post will be followed later by popular Internet Monk poster and famous Lutheran blogger Josh Strodtbeck, who will give us the Lutheran view of the canon. So this ought to be fun, interesting, and make the right people mad enough to call me an “invertebrate.” (Love those flashes of TR rhetoric.)

As some of you know, discussions about authority, who is the true church, what franchise operation did Jesus found and where should we all shop really give me the hives. Inerrantists, some Calvinists, most recent evangelical converts to the RCC and the entire Church of Christ in western Kentucky are all into this. Still, you have to think about these things. So get ready to discover that I don’t think the canon is as closed as most of you, and I am not nearly as afraid of tradition as some of you want me to be. The one thing I know is that on this bus, we’re all fallible, and that makes the subject interesting.

See you in the comments.

I’m no expert on the subject of canon, and I need to spend more time studying the subject, but I get a fair amount of questions from students about the canon and canon-related issues. Without trying to write a polished essay, I have several ideas about the canon I’d like to cover.Continue reading “Thinking About the Canon: A Post-Evangelical’s View”